The Census Bureau is cutting short critical door-knocking efforts for the 2020 census amid growing concerns among Democrats in Congress that the White House is pressuring the bureau to wrap up counting soon for political gain, NPR has learned.
Attempts by the bureau's workers to conduct in-person interviews for the census will end on Sept. 30 — not Oct. 31, the end date it indicated in April would be necessary to count every person living in the U.S. given major setbacks from the coronavirus pandemic. Three Census Bureau employees, who were informed of the plans during separate internal meetings Thursday, confirmed the new end date with NPR. All of the employees spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of losing their jobs.
"It's going to be impossible to complete the count in time," said one of the bureau employees, an area manager who oversees local census offices. "I'm very fearful we're going to have a massive undercount."
NYC Census Response Rate Continues To Lag As City Grapples With Pandemic Fears And Reduced Door-Knocking
Despite the potential loss of millions of dollars in federal aid that would result from an undercount in the 2020 U.S. Census, there’s been an alarming lack of participation by New Yorkers, for a myriad of reasons. This follows a national trend, though New York’s participation average remains far lower.
By mid-July New York state saw a 57.9% response rate to the Census so far, which is roughly 5% worse than the nationwide response rate. In NYC, the response rate is even worse: as of Sunday it was just 53% on average, according to the city.
In congressional districts in New York City there remains a wide gulf between response rates collected so far during this year’s census compared to a decade ago. The reasons, according to a data analysis, vary widely, though the COVID-19 epidemic remains a huge factor.
The trend of lower response rates across the city may be further exacerbated by news that the Census Bureau, according to an NPR report, will reduce the amount of door-knocking by enumerators—workers tasked with ensuring those who haven’t voluntarily filled out the census are counted—by an entire month. Door-knocking was scheduled to begin on August 11th and end on October 31st, but Census sources told NPR the program would end on September 30th.
Testimony before the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis, which is looking into the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic, was highly partisan. Republican members defended the approach advanced by the White House, and Democrats tore into it, saying that there still is no national strategy and that the death toll is soaring as a result.
With about 4.5 million Americans infected with the novel coronavirus and about 150,000 dead — a toll that grows by 1,000 people or more every day — tempers flared as the health officials found themselves in the middle of heated debates over the efficacy of a controversial drug, the wisdom of reopening schools and ways to prevent the virus from racing through the country.
Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s leading expert on infectious diseases, told the panel that a “diversity of response” from states had hampered efforts to bring down the number of new infections. In contrast, he said, many European nations went into near-total lockdowns.
“When they shut down or locked down or went to shelter in place — however you want to describe it — they really did it to the tune of about 95 percent plus of the country,” Fauci said of European nations, answering a question posed by the panel’s chair, Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.)
The Trump administration decided to leave state and local officials to determine what kind of restrictions to impose, with mixed results.
“When you actually look at what we did, even though we shut down, even though it created a great deal of difficulty, we really functionally shut down only about 50 percent in the sense of the totality of the country,” Fauci said.
President Trump apparently was watching the exchange on television and within a few minutes chided the committee chairman in a tweet that repeated the widely discredited assertion that the U.S. caseload is going up only because testing has increased.
“Somebody please tell Congressman Clyburn, who doesn’t have a clue, that the chart he put up indicating more CASES for the U.S. than Europe, is because we do MUCH MORE testing than any other country in the World,” Trump tweeted as the hearing was going on.
The United States administers 700,000 to 900,000 tests a day, a volume health experts say is insufficient for containing the virus.
Brett P. Giroir, the federal health official overseeing coronavirus testing, touted the Trump administration’s efforts but added, “We cannot test our way out of this or any other pandemic.”
Giroir acknowledged that getting results back to all patients within two to three days is not possible now, though he said that 75 percent of test results come within five days. Wait times have also stretched to a week or more in some places, effectively rendering tests useless in slowing transmission.
A consensus is emerging that a first wave of the disease is not over. Many places around the world that fought back coronavirus outbreaks in the spring are reporting record surges in new cases. France, for example, reported a 54 percent increase in infections in the past week.
In the United States, many Sun Belt states have become coronavirus hot spots, and case numbers are spiking in the Midwest and other regions.
The country has almost a quarter of the more than 17 million coronavirus infections confirmed worldwide. Testimony from the U.S. health experts suggested that the widely divergent policies among states and regions of the country, as well as resistance by some Americans to practicing basic protective measures such as wearing masks and avoiding crowds, are at least partially responsible.
The hearing touched on a raging debate over whether children should return to classrooms for in-person instruction, or continue learning remotely.
Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a grandfather, said he thinks it is in children’s interest to return to their classrooms.
“I want these kids back in school,” he testified. “I want it done smartly, but I think we have to be honest that the public health and interest of the students in the nation right now is to get a quality education and face-to-face learning. We need to get on with it.”
But a report released Friday by the CDC may further fuel parental fears that a return to classrooms is too risky. The report suggests that children of all ages are susceptible to coronavirus infections and also may spread the virus.
The report details an outbreak at a summer camp in Georgia last month in which 260 children and staffers — more than three-quarters of those tested — contracted the virus less than a week after spending time together in close quarters.
All the campers and staffers had tested negative for the virus before arriving. But the children were not required to wear masks, although staffers were.
The virus continues to cast a shadow on almost every aspect of American life. Major League Baseball has canceled 14 games in its abbreviated season. Some 30 million Americans will lose the enhanced jobless benefit of $600 a week because Congress and the White House are at an impasse on extending it. Even without a national policy on mitigation efforts, more states are considering closing bars and are mandating mask-wearing in public.